Will Project Terra Return?
We're all too familiar with those two little words that break our hearts once a week: "No Update." And things are only getting worse. According the Official Beta Information thread, the game is currently in a closed status. Nothing more has been changed in the 'left to be completed' section since February. What ever happened to 'October' When the game was first infiltrated, it was closed to protect those who had not been hacked. Chris decided that this was a prime oppurtunity to recode the game into Beta, and gave October as an estimate for the date of completion. However: he encountered bumps along the way. In Iris' words: "Chris informed me, and the rest of the team, that 6 weeks was a conservative estimate. Hence, Chris posted an October estimate. In the weeks following, we felt confident that we would make the proposed deadline. Once we did get to that fateful day, however, it was apparent that the game was not close to ready. The development team simply hadn't had enough time and severely underestimated the time it would take to complete the game. By the time November came around, we had another discussion with Chris about the game's release. While we didn't want to set another arbitrary deadline for fear of missing it yet again, we also did not want to leave the community absolutely uninformed." So what's taking so long? Chris is a normal guy. He spends his free time on PT, but unfortunately he doesn't get much. He has a family life. Unfortunately, Chris just doesn't have the time to complete Project-Terra as quick as we would like. On top of this, Demothesis had school committments and was totally unable to continue coding the game (although recently he rejoined Chris). Zombiegeddon made an appeal for further assistance with the coding - which was met with a very feeble response, if any. Chris was unfamiliar with the new code, so took some extra time learning how to use it. Coding couldn't progress until Microsoft released .NET 4.5 (which wasn't updated when they said it would be - almost ironic -Chris even said "the service I was planning on using hadn't been updated like I expected. So, interestingly enough, I'm in a similar boat to you guys" followed by "Microsoft has told me that things will be updated 'very very soon.' They sound like me. Karma sucks.") What did Chris say? 21:57:21 Chris, will PT return? 21:57:41 Yes. (IRC) What did IRIS say? "I do honestly believe the game will be released for the public to play....I do not foresee Chris jumping ship" (forum PM) Why doesn't Chris give up? People still have hope in Chris Walling, saying: 1. He's put a lot of time in, he wouldn't want to see it go to waste 2. He's put a lot of money in 3. He's got a lot of people in the community whom he respects and does not want to let down. Why do people think it won't come back There is an equally strong argument against the return of PT. 1. Chris has no real reason to complete it. He has motives, granted, but no reason. It's not a school project, contrary to popular belief. 2. Chris will loose money if he does this. He's spending money on servers and, of course, time is money. He's not making anything from the game right now. In IRIS' words: it's a net loss. Update: closure of the Politics forum This risky move, made by IRIS, has triggered controversy in the PT world. Is this the death of alliances? In an open letter, Dddane asks the moderators: "you want to kill off any alliances left, any community left, and anybody that still wants to play your game?" "You continue to punish people for the most ridiculous things, on a forum for a game that doesn't even exist anymore, all while we try to stick around and support Chris' ambitions?" However the moderators were hot on the heels with responses: "Considering that there is little to no use for an alliance politics forum while the game is down, I felt it best to simply shut down the forum." "Without a game, game related politcs are, for all intents and purposes, dead, as the state of that forum has shown over the last few months." "As far as the idea that we're killing off the community -- the vast majority of community activity has been occurring in The Lounge, in bursts on IRC, and in outreach threads in the Announcements forum. All of those areas remain open. The AP forums are, in their current state, a vestigial organ with no real purpose, the occasional posts largely off-topic or belong elsewhere." In Dddane's letter, the issue of moderation bias was addressed. Despite PT's closure, mod bias is an issue that still resides over Project-Terra. Operation:EndThisMadness was set up by the TerraLeaker to bring issues of moderation bias to light. '''Note: '''depending on how many people are active on the IRC, the Mods don't always like discussions of this nature. If you want to discuss this article or anything else to do with PT's return, use #WillPTReturn (an open IRC chan)